Industrial espionage used to be associated mostly with fiction and films. At most, it seemed far from everyday life and a possibility that only the higher echelons of large corporations needed to be concerned about. That began to change when technology in the firm of increasingly sophisticated bugs made long or short term eavesdropping easier; millions of them have been purchased in Britain in the past several years. And consider, with something as simple and accessible as a USB stick, entire databases, product and customer information, access codes and other sensitive information can be stolen - copied in minutes. Anybody can do it, including worried employees in the redundancy firing line. In a survey of 250 employees conducted a month ago by IT security experts Cyber-Ark, 40% are already downloading valuable information and 60% would do it if they thought they could get away with it.
Private investigators are becoming well aware of an increase in industrial espionage. As competition for marker share becomes more and more fierce in the chilly climae of belt-tightening and cost cutting, more companies are looking for a competitive edge by hiring private investigators ti spy for them.
Company A is a large, well-established food distribution company. It is comprehensively insured, fulfils all health and safety requirements, pays its workers the minimum wage, in short - operates fully within the law. to remain competitive it has always kept prices down and profits to a minimum, so it cannot sustain further price cuts. To cut cost by reducing the work force would compromise product quality, and it is therefore not an option.
But Company B is undercutting Company A by almost 50%. Company A did not pay much attention to this in the past; there was enough business for everyone. Now Company A is questioning how Company B can manage to do this and stay in business: in fact, it does not believe it is possible. Company A hires a private investigator. The private investigator send in an operative who pretends to be on benefits and willing to work for half the minimum wage, cash in hand. Company B hire him. It transpires that Company B also hires illegal immigrants on the same terms, does not properly train its workers, and does not adhere to the strict health and safety procedures required in the food industry. No wonder it can undercut Comapny A and still make a profit.
Furnished with evidence of all this, provided by the private investigator, Company A blows the whistle and turns Company B over toi the authorities.
‘It’s not only the client who benefits in situations like these,’ says Steve Grayson of Listening Devices Detection Services. ’It does’t take much imagination to realise that public health and safety can be put at risk in any number of ways when companies do not follow proper training procedures, or hire cheap, unskilled labour without references.’
The downside is fairly obvious: ‘Some companies just want to spy on their competitors to stea innformation,’ says Grayson. ’Unfortunately unscrupulous investigators who will do this can always be found without too much difficulty.’
